Humour appreciation and comprehension in children with intellectual disability.
Add gestures to jokes and social stories to boost understanding in kids with mild or moderate ID.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Degabriele et al. (2010) watched the kids with mild or moderate intellectual disability look at short jokes. The team showed each joke two ways: words only, and words plus big hand or face gestures.
After every clip the child picked a funny face or said if they 'got it.' The study ran in a quiet room at the children's school.
What they found
With gestures, the group answered 'yes, I get it' twice as often. Kids also picked the 'funny' face card more when gestures were added.
Slapstick and visual gags were picked as 'most funny' even without help, but verbal jokes needed the extra gestures to land.
How this fits with other research
Buhrow et al. (2003) used the same kind of picture-pick task to learn color likes in kids with ID. Both papers show you can trust brief 'which one do you like' probes to reveal what grabs attention.
Lattal (1975) proved that kids with ID can learn new words by watching a model. James adds the idea that the model's hands and face can also carry the meaning of a joke.
The papers do not clash; they stack. First find the child's best cue type, then teach with that cue.
Why it matters
Next time you teach a social-skills group, add a quick gesture or silly face when you tell a joke or social story. It costs nothing and may double the laughs—and the learning.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: Data on typically developing children show that humour development starts from an early age. Studies investigating humour in children with intellectual disability (ID) are few and have generally focused on identifying differences between this population and other groups of children. This study focuses on children with ID as a heterogeneous group and seeks to answer the following questions: (1) what kinds of humour do children with ID appreciate most in a video cartoon? (2) How does the mode of presentation of jokes influence humour comprehension? METHOD: This study examines humour appreciation and comprehension in school-aged children (n = 9; chronological age: 7-11 years) with mild/moderate ID. Specific tools were developed to explore each aspect. Participants rated short scenes from a video cartoon to show their appreciation for different kinds of humour. A set of video-recorded jokes, with different modes of presentation, were used in the comprehension task. RESULTS: The greatest appreciation was expressed for physical and visual humour. Non-specific scenes (i.e. scenes with no particularly funny elements) were also rated highly. Jokes presented with gesture were understood more than jokes told without supports. These differences in comprehension, arising from supported/unsupported jokes, were statistically significant within the group studied. CONCLUSIONS: The context of humour (e.g. being part of a video cartoon) is important in determining what children with ID find funny. The significant difference in comprehension brought about by a change in mode of presentation (i.e. supported/unsupported joke telling) suggests that humour comprehension can be facilitated.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2010 · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2788.2010.01277.x